A quickfire, bracing blast of Post punk knees-up energy from one of Peel’s favourite bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s. Burning Bridges was the lead track on The Cravats’ The End. Spring 1979. EP. It’s a good example of the era’s predilection for gloriously spiteful break-up songs. Only the Contemporary R’n’B scene has rivalled the late 70s for this sub-genre of song. But it was only in the 70s where a lament about the loss of “...a chance to be tender” sounded more like an expression of anger than regret.
Driven along by Yehudi Storageheater’s swarm of bees-like saxophone and Rob Dallaway’s anguished, fuming vocals, the relationship in Burning Bridges has hit the buffers due to a multiplicity of late 70s tropes: communication breakdown, chemical dependency and infidelity - either with another person or with drugs (“I don’t mind if you don’t tell me about the things you do on your own....Chemicals you can’t account but I’ve been hardened in the night.”). They do a great job of smuggling through some pretty bleak subject matter under the cover of a jolly mosh. Clearly, the mood within The Cravats was at a low ebb when they recorded the EP given that the other tracks on it alongside Burning Bridges are the poppy but unambiguous I Hate the Universe (clearly they had premonitions about the result of the imminent UK General Election) and The End, a sci-fi/horror movie type jazz instrumental.
However, it wasn’t the end for The Cravats, who continued to release records up to 1982/83. Peel remained a supporter throughout and his appreciation for their music extended to personal admiration for them as people, especially bassist/vocalist The Shend.
“One of the reasons I liked the band, to be honest was because he was a really nice bloke. In fact, that’s what he put on his business card - ‘The Shend: A Decent Bloke’” (Peel interviewed by Simon Reynolds in Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, p.222, Faber and Faber, 2005).
To my chagrin, it appears that this was the last time Peel played a record by The Cravats in his lifetime. A Shend-led version of The Cravats reformed for live gigs in 2009 and through 2016/17 released their first new recordings since 1983 including the pre-EU Referendum single Jingo Bells and the album Dustbin of Sound. March 2020 saw them release a new album, Hoorahland.
Video courtesy of REDPUNK1VINYL
All lyrics copyright of The Cravats.
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